Comments on: Monkey Heart Attacks and Barnacle Penises: My take on the new book "Zoobiquity" http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/06/17/monkey-heart-attacks-and-barnacle-penises-my-take-on-the-new-book-zoobiquity/ Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:13:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Darwiniana » Zoobiquity http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/06/17/monkey-heart-attacks-and-barnacle-penises-my-take-on-the-new-book-zoobiquity/#comment-18008 Darwiniana » Zoobiquity Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:06:47 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/?p=5998#comment-18008 [...] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/06/17/monkey-heart-attacks-and-barnacle-penises-my-take-... [...] [...] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/06/17/monkey-heart-attacks-and-barnacle-penises-my-take-… [...]

]]> By: Brian Schmidt http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/06/17/monkey-heart-attacks-and-barnacle-penises-my-take-on-the-new-book-zoobiquity/#comment-18007 Brian Schmidt Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:00:48 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/?p=5998#comment-18007 Interesting point about large animals and long-lived animals being more vulnerable to cancer in theory. Whales are an extreme, but there are lots of other species we could examine. Giant tortoises and elephants, for example. Just googled around. Apparently the issue is called Peto's paradox, and somebody has their own explanation, that some cancer cells evolve to attack the original tumor, if the organism is big enough to survive the initial tumor growth: http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/2/317.full Interesting point about large animals and long-lived animals being more vulnerable to cancer in theory. Whales are an extreme, but there are lots of other species we could examine. Giant tortoises and elephants, for example.

Just googled around. Apparently the issue is called Peto’s paradox, and somebody has their own explanation, that some cancer cells evolve to attack the original tumor, if the organism is big enough to survive the initial tumor growth:

http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/2/317.full

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